Enemy One (Epic Book 5) (74 page)

I just awoke. I was screaming. Tauthin calmed me.

Tilting his head ever so faintly, Ed said to her,
Recall your screaming.

I cannot. I don’t remember what I was screaming. It was all in—
Right then, it dawned on her. It was in Bakmanese. Everything she screamed was in Bakmanese. She hadn’t been connected to Nagogg or to anyone. The Bakmanese had all come from her.

She already knew it.

Confusion washed over her. Her breathing increased.
But wait…if I was speaking Bakmanese then, how is it that I do not remember it now? Or ever?

Additional exploration required.

“Oh, God,” she said disgustedly under her breath. Eyes widening at the realization she’d just spoken aloud, she glanced about discreetly to see if any of the crew noticed. None of them seemed to. Her focus shifted back to Ed as their mental conversation resumed.
By exploration, do you mean you must explore my mind?

Affirmative.

Will it hurt again?
The last time he’d done that, she’d screamed. Now
that
, the crew would most certainly hear.

A sense of extreme caution came from Ed as the Ithini answered her.
The more you welcome me in, the less it will hurt.

Closing her eyes, she drew in a deep, albeit quiet breath. She exhaled slowly.
I am finding my calm.
There was no sense of impatience coming from the Ithini. That was helping.

Gently, Ed addressed her.
Recall your companions on Earth. Name them.

Eyes still closed and breaths still steady, Svetlana thought of the first name to come to mind.
Scott.
Instantly, as if Scott’s name itself was a calming elixir, a feeling of peace and familiarity came over her. Almost like he was there.

Tell me about Scott.

She smiled. It was like returning home.
Scott is…a better man than he thinks he is.

You love him.

Though the phrasing was intended as a statement of acknowledgement, she answered it like it was a question.
I love him.

Recall your best memory of Scott.

Her best memory? It doubled as her saddest.
My best memory was…seeing him realize who he was.
The first time he’d stood up to Saretok in the
Pariah
, donned in his black armor with the golden collar.
He was unafraid, confident. He’d come to peace with the fact that he was a murderer. Even if he refused to embrace it.
The man she’d first met in the lounge of Room 14 was gone forever—but that was okay.

The tone of Ed’s communication changed—the Ithini became more commanding.
You are ready.

It actually took her a moment to realize what he was telling her, but when she did, she took special care to mind the feelings she was feeling. The warmth, the familiarity of thinking about Scott. That was the calm Ed required to enter her mind painlessly. That, she could cling to.
Let’s do this.
Eyes still closed, Svetlana focused on her breaths.

A sharp pain came to her—she inhaled.

Calm,
Ed relayed.

Though her breathing intensified, Svetlana remained focused. If the pain didn’t increase—if it stayed at the level it was at now—she could handle it. Slowly, her calmness returned.

Ed was there. She could feel him. There was no way to describe the surreal feeling, the
physical
feeling, of having her mind explored in such an intimate way. She could only compare it to someone wandering through an empty house that wasn’t their own. She could sense the Ithini’s footsteps.

Moaning softly in pain, she winced as she felt him dig deeper, disturbing forgotten memories of her mind like the muddy bottom of a shallow sea. They drifted aimlessly, some colliding with other memories while others drifted to the surface. She remembered being stumped by a geography question on a test in secondary school. The musty smell of her uncle’s wine cellar that she and a forgotten friend had snuck into to play hide and seek. The first time she tasted an orange. Those smells, those tastes, they all came to her again. Ed was digging through memories she didn’t know she had.

As hard as she was able, Svetlana walked a fine line of ignoring Ed while allowing him to roam. But this wasn’t comfortable. Not at all. Just when she was on the verge of asking him how much longer he would be, she felt his presence ease off. The muddy bottom settled. His footsteps disappeared.

It is over.

Sighing quietly in relief, Svetlana opened her eyes, fixing them on Ed as she relayed to him the question,
Did it work?

You already possess that which you seek.

The Bakma language. Ed continued.

In your mind, there is a great gulf. On your conscious side, you are yourself. Beyond the gulf, you are another.

Nagogg
, she thought. Faintly from a distance, Ed nodded.
How can I take from him what I need?

She was struck by a severe sense of trepidation.
You have already traversed the gulf. With each journey, you have retrieved what your subconscious sought to know.

In a bizarre way, he was making sense. There was no better example than Mishka. She’d needed to know canrassi commands to stop him from devouring her—and her subconscious had retrieved them. But this was her
subconscious
. How could she control that?

Ed answered without prompt.
You mind is incapable of understanding your subconscious as it exists in reality. What you wish to do cannot be done in the manner in which you seek to accomplish it. However…

That there was a noticeable hesitation in Ed brought her no comfort.

…I can overlay your subconscious with realities your mind can interpret. You can traverse the gulf as you would in reality. This is the only means by which you can retrieve what you desire.

Then let us do it.
She didn’t need to understand how this all worked. She simply needed it
to
work.

Ed answered her matter-of-factly.
Though I can lead you to the gulf, I cannot accompany you across it. To do so would risk a siphon of Nagogg’s echo into my own subconscious, much as his echo now resides in yours. You must cross the gulf on your own.

It was an easy decision.
Then so be it. This must be done. If it must be done alone, then I will do it alone.

I warn you: your mind has already been fractured. The further into Nagogg you traverse, the larger the fracture may become. I do not recommend that you do this.

She had to do it. She needed to bring her knowledge of Bakmanese to the surface. She needed to know what was going on around her without Ed’s help. She needed to be solely in control.

There was no need for Svetlana to convey her decision to the Ithini. Ed already knew.
I cannot interpret what lies beyond the gulf. You must decipher its meaning on your own. Do not approach what you do not wish to bring back with you. You may choose the time at which you awaken, but do not awaken on Nagogg’s side of the gulf—to do so would alter your psyche in unforeseen ways.

I understand.

The Ithini hesitated.
You do not.

Of all the warnings Ei`dorinthal had given her, it was those three words that chilled her the most. But there was no turning back now.
What must I do?

Close your eyes.

Doing as told, Svetlana waited for the next command.
I am ready.

Calm your mind.

Nodding absently, Svetlana replied,
I am calm.
She could handle this. She
knew
she could handle this. This wouldn’t be Ed rummaging through her mind—all of the rummaging would be done by her. Take back only what she needed from Nagogg. Approach nothing else. Two easy steps. Very subtly, she could feel Ed’s touch on her mind. It was time.

You are going to get wet.

Furrowing her brow curiously, she asked,
I am going to get what?

The plunge came suddenly. Cold water—frigid water—enveloped Svetlana as her eyes shot open from beneath it. Screaming in horror, air bubbles poured out of her mouth as she looked every which way. In every direction, she saw blackness. An awareness of
up
came, and she frantically propelled herself toward the surface, her legs kicking in panic as a flash of lightning illuminated the water’s surface then disappeared. She was almost there. With a final push, she popped her head above water and gasped loudly for air.

It was storming. Stinging rain pelted the top of her head and the water around her. She wiped her hair back and looked in all directions. With every flash of lightning and crack of thunder, she saw only an endless expanse of black ocean. No signs of land on the horizon. No floating debris in the water. Just a black ocean.

“Ed!”
she screamed, pivoting in the water as her legs and arms kept her afloat. Her lips shivering, she screamed his name again. Very faintly, her eyes caught sight of her nose. It was back on her face once again. Abandoning the momentary revelation, she tried to make out the Ithini’s voice—his presence—somewhere in the expanse. There was nothing to be heard but thunder and rain.

This was not what she’d expected. It wasn’t what she’d prepared for. Was this the “gulf?” Was she supposed to swim it? There was nowhere to swim to as far as the eye could see.

From the depths, a hand grabbed her ankle—shrinking back on the surface, she shrieked and kicked herself free. Heart pounding in her chest, she was grabbed a second time, this time more firmly. Before she could scream again, she was dragged beneath the water.

As the hands pulled her down, she felt them climbing up her body—two of them. Squirming and screaming, she was powerless to push herself away. Before she knew it, she was staring at her attacker face to face.

It was Scott.

Eyes widening, Svetlana stared into her love’s hazel eyes. Placing his hands gently on her shoulders, Scott brushed her drifting hair from her face. For a moment, it felt like time stopped. The storm and the waves melted away.

Scott released her shoulders, drifting away from her as she gazed at him in awe and maintaining eye contact until the very end. Looking down, the soldier flipped himself upside down and propelled himself not up, but into the icy depths below. Within seconds, he was gone.

Propelling herself back to the surface, Svetlana sucked in a hard breath and whisked back her hair. Again, she looked in every direction. There was nowhere for her to go. Nothing to swim to. There was only one way she felt the overwhelming desire to go.

Straight down.

There was no doubt in Svetlana’s mind that the image of Scott had been Ed in some capacity. Holding her breath, she bowed her head and lowered her face into the water in an effort to discern something—
anything
—below. She saw only darkness. Lifting her head again, she wiped the water from her face and drew in a breath.

Hyperventilate. That was the only thing she knew to do in preparation for a dive. Inhaling and exhaling a series of deep, fast breaths, Svetlana sucked in hard, clamped her mouth shut, and plunged beneath the waves.

Svetlana was not a swimmer. The water was a world dominated by people like Esther Brooking, not the blond medic. Yet the further down she dove, the longer she held in her breath, the more natural the experience became. With every pulling-down breaststroke, her muscles felt less and less fatigued, with every second, her oxygen less and less scarce. Within thirty seconds, she wasn’t aware of them at all. It was like she belonged there.

All at once, flickers of memories flashed through her mind. Scott laughing sweetly at one of her jokes. Galina holding her on the day Svetlana left
Novosibirsk
. Esther christening her with a bowl of porridge. Everything she’d experienced in the past year—the good, the bad, the traumatic, the worthwhile—blurred past her like she was swimming through a roller coaster tunnel. Slapping Dostoevsky, calling for Flopper at Chernobyl, yearning for that one kiss from Scott then feeling utter defeat when it didn’t come. It was all there. It was all her.

Far below, for the first time since her plunge, something appeared. It was faint at first—a dim, violet glow that was barely discernible amid the darkness. But the harder she swam, the further she propelled herself downward, the more visible it became. There was no question in her mind that this was where she was supposed to go. Downward she continued, downward she dove, until subtly, almost naturally, down became up. She was no longer diving down into the depths. She was rising to a new surface.

It was right at that moment that a realization came to her: all of the memories, all of the things that made her who she was, were gone. She couldn’t even pinpoint an exact moment when they’d disappeared—they’d just been sucked from existence. Not even Ed was present. She was alone. Truly alone, as if no other being in the cosmos existed. As if there was no one else.

This was not the world she knew. She didn’t even need to reach the surface to be certain of it. She’d just crossed the gulf.

As Svetlana drew closer to the surface, the violet grew more intense. She could see the water rippling from her vantage point beneath. Pulling and propelling herself upward, she prepared to hit the surface.

Head breaking above water, Svetlana gasped and fought to stay afloat, the sudden sensation of oxygen deprivation hitting her hard. She felt like she was on the verge of death. Buckling over, she collapsed to her knees and rested her forehead on…

…on something solid. Not entirely solid, but definitely not the ocean. Lifting her head and slicking her hair back, she stared at the ground before her. It was wet, mushy land. Blinking, she looked back to where she’d resurfaced only moments before. The ocean was gone. She was kneeling in the middle of a bog.

The pungent odor of decaying vegetation struck her nostrils, and she pushed up to her feet. Looking up into the nighttime sky, the medic froze when she saw a planet. A ringed planet, streaked like Jupiter but in varying shades of purple. It was stunning—beautiful. Its dark glow illuminated the whole bog. All at once, a name came to her:
Vasvuul
. The planet was called Vasvuul.